Vatican II - a Work in Progress

For many Catholics the Second Vatican Council is ancient history. 

They may acknowledge that it was important, momentous, decisive.  And even if they were not alive when the Council  met (1962-65) and did not personally experience the changes and challenges it brought about, they can agree that it was a critical moment in the life of the Church. But it happened a long time ago, and it may appear to them to be dated and irrelevant for the Church of today.

The truth is: though it ended in 1965, the work of the Council is still underway. Vatican II is not over; in many ways it has just begun.

Vatican II set the direction for the Church as she ended the 20^th and entered the 21^st century. The 16 documents developed by the bishops and approved by the pope provide goals and strategies for implementation. 

More than 50 years later Pope Francis urges the people of God to follow that direction.

Dozens of subsequent documents, such as instructions on proper implementation, have been issued by the pope and Vatican offices over the years to insure correct understanding of the Council’s pronouncements and to encourage their appropriate application to a variety of pastoral situations and circumstances not necessarily addressed by the Council documents themselves.

The Church can be compared to an ocean liner; it cannot change course on a dime. It takes time, and returning it to its proper course and destination is still underway.

One example of the changes to be implemented is respect for “competent territorial ecclesiastical authority.” Among the decisions articulated in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium, approved on December 4, 1963) is recognition that regulation of the liturgy within certain defined limits belongs to various kinds of bishops’ conferences, legitimately established, with competence in given territories (22.2).

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, therefore, has a right to regulate, with approval of the Apostolic See (the pope), certain aspects of the celebration of the sacraments. Translation from Latin for use in the liturgy is one of those aspects which must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority (36.4).

The recognition of this local input flows from the Council’s acknowledgement that the Church does not want to impose rigid uniformity, but rather respects and fosters the qualities and talents of various races and nations (37).

With this in mind the Council agreed that competent territorial ecclesiastical authorities may specify adaptations for administering the sacraments, for processions, liturgical language, sacred music and the arts (39).

In 2001, Liturgiam authenticam, a directive from a Vatican office, insisted that translations from the Latin  “in so far as possible, must be translated integrally and in the most exact manner, without omissions or additions in terms of their content, and without paraphrases or glosses. Any adaptation to the characteristics or the nature of the various vernacular languages is to be sober and discreet."

In effect the translation now used for the prayers at Mass so follows the word order and structure of the Latin phrasing that the English version is often awkward and sometimes a challenge to understand.

The “poster-child” of such challenging prayers is the collect for the 19^th Sunday in Ordinary Time: “Almighty ever-living God, whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection within our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised. Through our Lord Jesus Christ…”

In pre-Vatican II days priests often before Mass translated the Latin into English so they could understand what they were saying. Today many priests before Mass translate the “English” into English.

In September, 2017, a directive from Vatican II-minded Pope Francis affirmed for bishops conferences that it is their responsibility faithfully to prepare versions of the liturgical books in vernacular languages, suitably accommodated within defined limits, and to approve and publish the liturgical books for the regions for which they are responsible after the confirmation of the Apostolic See.

It remains to be seen whether the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and other English-speaking Episcopal conferences will re-visit the translation of the Roman Missal we are currently using. Such a re-assessment and the development of a truly vernacular translation would be an example of the spirit and letter of Vatican II  —a worthy project for 2018 (as the current copies of the Roman missal are showing wear and need repair).

Praying What We Believe

There is a principle in theology which holds that the way we pray is the way we believe -- or lex orandi, lex credendi to be more precise.

Theologians Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler noted in their dictionary of theology that there was a similar statement recorded in the Council of Ephesus (431) when it was cataloguing authoritative statements from popes. It has lex supplicandi, lex credendi, which might be rendered "the law of supplication, the law of believing" (Denzinger, 139).

Rahner and Vorgrimler explained that the statement from the Council of Ephesus developed into the theological principle that "the liturgy is the norm of faith, a witness to the infallible belief of the praying church."

If you have stayed with me through these three paragraphs, please follow me into the Roman Missal (Third Edition) and to the second eucharistic prayer.

The new translation of that prayer includes the petition, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, that...we may merit to be coheirs to eternal life..."

It is the term "merit" that makes me question what it is we believe.

If we keep praying that we may merit eternal life, then does that not influence what we believe about grace, about eternal life as pure gift?

It is Catholic theology that no one merits heaven; it is a gift.

We follow God's commands, we suffer along with Christ, not so that we will merit eternal life but because it has already been offered to us. Doing things and being good in order to earn heaven is putting the cart before the horse.

Some children are taught that they should be good in order to receive presents at Christmas. Adults are urged to be good because Christ has already offered them.

The notion that we have to do things in order to merit God's love and eternal life is reflected in the older son in Jesus' parable of the prodigal. He thought he should have been rewarded for his loyalty and service, and was upset that his younger, profligate brother was being welcomed home with a party.

St. Therese the Little Flower, and later the French author George Bernanos, happily proclaimed, "Grace is everywhere."

Perhaps the second eucharistic prayer would be better translated "that we may inherit eternal life."

If we understood the prayer in this way, we are simply affirming that the law of believing is the law of praying, or lex credendi, lex orandi.